Chapter Three: Theoretical Framework
3.3 Construction of Identity and Positioning Theory
Research on horizontal inequalities has provided valuable new insight into the salience of group identity to violent conflict. Further, it has been suggested that horizontal inequalities themselves contribute to the emergence and solidification of identities, underlining the reflexive nature of identity formation. However, no description of the theoretical or empirical connections between the social construction of identity and violent conflict exists (Fearon and Laitin, 2000: 847).
This section explores links between the social construction of identity and conflict. First, what is meant by identity and its construction is discussed. Then, three possible pathways through which constructed identities may precipitate ethnic violence are analysed for explanatory power and to provide insight into the links between constructions of identity and violent conflict. Finally, an alternative approach, using positioning theory, is presented and developed. “Positioning Theory looks at what a person may do and may not do” discursively (Harre et al., 2009). It helps us to interpret contested events and reveal something of the worldviews and perspectives of the people concerned. It opens a window into the origin of conflicts and sheds light on how the thinking and actions of many people may be influenced in a violent direction.
21 What is identity and how is it constructed?
Identity refers to a social category, such as: man, woman, homosexual, European, Muslim, worker, etc. Social categories are sets of people (actors) given a specific label (or labels) and meaning (Fearon and Laitin, 2000: 848). Social categories may also apply to something narrated - or positioned - such as region, a country or other types of purported communities (Slocum-Bradley, 2008b: 2).
Fearon and Laitin (2000: 848) propose that social categories have two salient features: 1) rules of membership that define who is and who is not a member of the category, and 2) content or characteristics such as beliefs, interests, values, moral commitments, behaviours (roles) and physical attributes thought to be typical of members. This includes the social valuation of members – i.e. having a basic identity and being a certain kind of person - and the possibility of being judged, and to judge oneself and others, by the standards relevant to that identity.
Ethnic identities are specifically defined by descent rules of group membership and content composed of attributes such as religion, language, custom and shared historical myths (Fearon and Laitin, 2000: 848).
For identities to be socially constructed means that “social categories, their membership rules, content and valuation are the product of human action and speech”. As a result, social categories can and do change over time (Fearon and Laitin, 2000: 848). However, actions and speech are not infinite. They are restrained by the nature of the discursive practices available in society.
Cultural texts furnish the inhabitants with the resources for constructing identity.
What do identity constructions entail for conflict?
The constructionist’s viewpoint is in stark contrast to those who believe social categories are natural, inevitable and concrete facts about the social world. 22 The belief that social categories are fixed by human nature; or a (mistaken) interpretation of biology - gender, sexuality,
ethnicity; or by theology, is a prime target of constructionist efforts to show how the content and membership of taken-for-granted social categories change over time. Primordialists argue that ethnicity is a cultural given or state of being determined by one’s descent; ethnic violence results
22 Constructionism is an ontological position (often also referred to as constructivism) (Bryman, 2016: 29). It is a term that flags the basic tenet of the approach, that social reality is constructed (Robson, 2002: 27).
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from hostilities that are enduring properties of ethnic groups. However, the primordial view doesn’t explain why ethnic groups change over time. Constructionists reject unchanging, essential characteristics of ethnic groups, arguing that even if two groups “are hostile to each other now, this need not be (and probably has not been) an eternal condition” (Fearon and Laitin, 2000: 849). While it may be interesting to know where ethnic distinctions came from
historically, this may or may not be important in explaining violence. However, the processes by which identities are produced in actions and discourse are worthy of closer attention.
Fearon and Laitin (2000: 850) propose three ways that constructed identities may precipitate ethnic violence: through broad structural forces, (grand) discursive formations, or individual agency.
Broad structural forces are observed in the construction of national identities. Fearon and Laitin (2000: 851) note that, while rejecting primordialist views, constructionist authors such as
Benedict Anderson argue that social and economic processes largely explain the emergence of nationalism in the modern period. Anderson claims that borders and national identities were created as a by-product of the structural force of “print capitalism” that created new local reading communities beyond the practice of the obscure academic language, Latin (Anderson, 2006).
Economic modernisation has undoubtedly affected all communities, but falls short of an
explanation for violent conflict between groups of people. Not all modern neighbouring groups fight. However, such forces may go some way to explaining how ethnic identities emerge in the first place and form a part of the underlying conditions for conflict.
(Grand) discursive formations include language and other symbolic or cultural systems that have their own logic or agency. In more deterministic interpretations, individual identity is merely a product of the larger discourses that exist and flow independently of individual actors.
Colonialism, globalisation and the discursive logic of masculinity, where people unwittingly play their ‘role’, are examples of such supra-individual discourses. While it is possible to see how these formulations can set one group against another, they are also inherently multifaceted and are frequently adopted to explain, defend and condone a variety of competing cultural practices.
As with modernisation, these (grand) discourses are nearly ubiquitous, but violent conflict is not.
They may create a disposition for violence, since they tend to be enduring structures, but the
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mechanism for causality is indeterminate. They also fail to explain cases where violence is absent and why, at the point of violence, the (grand) discourse cannot be abandoned or reinterpreted.
Ethnic identities – both the content and boundaries – may also be constructed by individuals.
Instrumentalists see ethnicity being used by groups and their leaders to achieve political or economic ends. For example, ethnic violence may occur where political elites construct hostile narratives to strengthen their own power. Elites cultivate ethnic conflict to gain political support, which in turn favours more violent conflict that serves to harden ethnic boundaries between opposing forces. Several suggestions have been presented for why followers would choose to engage with and support elites’ interests in this way.
One explanation, drawing on Social Identity Theory, suggests that ethnic groups adopt learned or innate psychological bias to discount elites’ manipulation of ethnic conflicts, such that the other takes the blame. Another explanation suggests that elites monopolise dissemination of
information leaving followers with a devil’s choice of who to believe – their own or the other. A third possibility suggests that elites do not deceive followers, but simply arrogate power under threat of the other. By simply creating an out-group, in-group leaders can increase popular demand for protection from the other. A further explanation Fearon and Laitin (2000: 855) attribute to Brass, suggests that ordinary folk involved in “community violence” are pursuing their diverse agendas. When elites position these disputes in an ethnic frame, they provide a licence to pursue these disputes as ethnic conflicts.
Importantly, the people who construct ethnic identities need not be politically motivated or a member of the elite. The constructionist logic of individual agency compels us to think of identities being socially constructed at grassroots. Marginalised individuals may subtly or overtly contest common assumptions about specific social categories. This action may create new identities, with new cultural boundaries, that lead to new conflicts over previously accepted boundaries. The ambiguity surrounding identities and processes for contesting the salient boundaries that delimit ethnic categories is what gives rise to ethnic violence. “It emerges from reactions by elites to efforts by ordinary people that threaten to redefine social boundaries.”
What is being suggested is “not that ethnic identities are constructed, but that violence is socially constructed as ethnic” (Fearon and Laitin, 2000: 857, 869).
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Absent from these constructionist theories of how social processes produce and reproduce the content and boundaries of ethnic groups is a clear explanation of the exact mechanism by which they lead to the identities that carry out ethnically based violence. In the aftermath of violent conflict, the causal factors are notoriously difficult to pinpoint and much retrospective analysis entails reading between the lines.
However, a story of conflict is often all there is. Only rarely are shots fired and blood spilt. But if these ultimate episodes of violent conflict are already present in storylines, where
incompatible and irresolvable contradictions become entrenched, more careful examination of the storylines may bring something tangible to light - a trace of why the conflict occurred. In this context, studying how people use words to describe themselves and others becomes a first step towards understanding the identities that reveal themselves in conflict.
Linking the social construction of identity and conflict through Positioning Theory
Another way in which constructed identities may precipitate violence involves the assignment of rights and duties, through a process of meaning-making, within a discursive framework.
Positioning theory proposes that social reality arises from three discursive practices:
conversations, institutional practices, and the use of rhetoric. These discursive practices have no fixed or static structure - they are linked, connected and developed through the rhythm of the interaction. However, it is in such conversations that our daily reality is reproduced and transformed (Tirado and Gálvez, 2007: 5).
Positioning theory is concerned with revealing the explicit and implicit patterns of reasoning that are performed in the ways people act towards others. By examining the social context, “in particular normative constraints and opportunities for action within an unfolding storyline, it becomes clear that access to and availability of certain practices, both conversational and
practical, are determined, not by individual levels of competence alone, but by having rights and duties in relation to items in the local corpus of sayings and doings” (Harre et al., 2009: 6). One way to illustrate this point is to imagine the implausibility of Cinderella donning a lightsaber or summoning The Force. The local corpus of sayings and doings in the Cinderella fairy-tale determines the range of opportunities for action within the storyline. In real life, individual agency permits wider scope for action than in a fairy-tale, but the social context still limits some of the possibilities.
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If life is seen to unfold as a narrative, with multiple, concurrent and interwoven storylines, the significance of peoples’ actions (including speech acts) “is partly determined by the then-and-there positions of the actors” (Harre et al., 2009: 8). To be engaged in a social episode one must be in possession of some recognised rights. The unfolding storyline is mutually determined, unless challenged, by the (speech) acts people articulate, and that in turn is mutually determined by the positions that are taken in the episode. “Such positions are constituted by their assigned, ascribed, claimed or assumed rights and duties to make use of the available and relevant
discursive tools” (Ibid.: 8).
Positions are clusters of beliefs about how rights and duties should be distributed during personal interactions and the practices in which these beliefs are explicitly realized. They are features of the local moral landscape. Positioning is something that happens during the interaction. It can be done intentionally, inadvertently or presumptively.
In these discursive processes, identity constitutes (and is constituted by) three components:
narrative (storylines), moral commitments (or positions), and discursive acts. The process of identity construction and acts of conflict (or peace) are mutually constitutive elements in the construction of social reality (Slocum-Bradley, 2008c: 104).
One type of discursive act involves engaging in patterns of conflict, including:
• specific speech acts, accusations, rebukes, belittlement and blame;
• assignment of different rights and duties to different groups;
• assigning specific traits to groups (particularly transgressor and victim identities); and
• undermining the legitimacy of other actors and their actions through discursive techniques.
Patterns of conflict (and peace) are buried in narratives about what is and what should be and an interpretation of the wider cultural context. Identities produce, and are produced by, engagement in such discourse. Benhabib (1999: 344) captures this aspect of interweaving narratives in identity construction in his exploration of Charles Taylor’s “webs of interlocution”.
“We become who we are by learning to be a convincing partner in these narratives … our agency consists in our capacity to weave out of those narratives and fragments of
narratives a life story that makes sense for us, as unique individual selves.”
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In essence, positioning theory is the analysis of these interrelated aspects of identity,
interpretation and meaning-making (Harre and Slocum, 2003: 103). Positioning theory allows for expansion of scale, from the analysis of person to person encounters, to the evolution of interactions between nation states (Harre et al., 2009: 6). The interactions can be conducted by individuals or groups of people - characterised as a single actor with agency and moral
commitments.
Slocum-Bradley (2008c: 111) presents the positioning diamond as a framework for analysing meaning construction in discourse. She introduces four mutually influential elements: (1) the social force of (speech) acts 23, (2) storylines, (3) identities, and (4) sets of rights and duties (refer Figure 2). A change in one of the meanings generally induces a change in one or all the others.
Identities (e.g. us – them) determine how rights and duties are allocated. Judgements about how rights and duties are fulfilled (e.g. good – bad), in turn, have consequences for the identity of the actors. The storyline determines which identities are relevant (e.g. Cinderella), and the identities that are summoned influence the storyline’s plausibility. The social force of a (speech) act (e.g.
blame) evokes identities and these identities influence how the social force is determined (e.g.
Cinderella is the persecuted heroine).
The steps show how conflict can emerge through discourse. Each step is accomplished (often simultaneously) through discursive interaction. Conflict can arise at any or each of the steps, i.e.
when there is a misallocation of rights and duties, an action is interpreted as an intentional transgression of another’s rights, there is a failure to uphold assigned duties, or when the identities of transgressor and victim are ascribed (Slocum-Bradley, 2008a).
23 The social force of (speech) acts includes non-verbal acts and refers to the illocutionary force of the act rather than the act itself. For example, the exclamation “There's a snake beside you!” may have the illocutionary force of a warning. In other words, social force is the work (speech) acts do.
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Figure 2: The Positioning Diamond (Slocum-Bradley, 2009: 92)
Previous research using positioning theory has illustrated how discursive tools can be employed to foment conflict, how group conflicts may arise when storylines adopted by different groups are incompatible, or in opposition to each other, and that oppositional positions and storylines contribute to the maintenance of conflicts. Further, evidence suggests “that at the heart of most conflicts lies a discrepancy over which rights and duties should be accorded to which actors”
(Slocum-Bradley, 2008c: 114).
Positioning theory provide a specificity to the mechanisms of individual agency that structural forces and (grand) discursive formations lack. Storylines help us to deconstruct the motivations behind individual actions, both elite and grassroots’. Discord over the perceived rights and duties that flow from the representations (and misrepresentations) made establish grounds for conflict. One goal of positioning theory is to identify who did and did not have positioning power, and the basis on which that power was allocated (Harre and Slocum, 2003: 114). A reason for this difference is, while there are always competing representations embedded in the social context, “it is the representations produced by members of politically powerful, dominant groups that become accepted as ‘true’.” Dominant groups who control representation, then produce knowledge from an historical and social repertoire, which constitutes some part of the
Identities
Story Lines Rights &
Duties
Social Forces
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identity of those represented (Stella, 2007b: 1). This positioning power also helps explain why some storylines are more prominent than others.
In summary: this chapter has introduced the concept of horizontal inequalities, or the proposal that violent conflict is more likely when groups that share a salient identity face severe
inequalities of various kinds. Furthermore, it has suggested that horizontal inequalities may themselves contribute to the formation of identities. It has considered different ways in which identities may be constructed and mechanisms though which the social construction of identity may contribute to ethnic violence. It has introduced positioning theory as a tool for
understanding such creation of meaning in social life. It has shown how an examination of storylines can reveal salient identities (to which implicit and explicit rights and duties have been allocated), how individuals interpret social context and how this can provide clues to the origins of conflicts. Deep understanding of social meaning is an important building block for the
analysis of conflict. The positioning diamond is one possible way of revealing structure in social interactions. It will be employed in the analysis section (Chapter 5) to help interpret meanings in conversations held along the Black Cat Track.
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